The David Florida Laboratory is the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

's spacecraft assembly, integration and testing centre, in Shirleys Bay, just west of central

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. It is operated by the

and rented out to Canadian and foreign aerospace and telecommunications companies and organizations for qualifying space bound equipment such as communication or scientific satellites, or components made to be placed on satellites or installed in a space station. The laboratory was named to honour C. David Florida, a leading Canadian pioneer in space research. Officially opened in September 1972, the lab has been expanded over the years to accommodate the demand for its services. There are many support facilities such as storage areas,

clean room A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space that maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well-isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientifi ...

s, electrodynamic shakers,

anechoic chamber An anechoic chamber (''an-echoic'' meaning "non-reflective" or "without echoes") is a room designed to stop reflection (physics), reflections or Echo (phenomenon), echoes of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also often isolate ...

s, space (thermal and vacuum) simulation chambers and in-house mechanical, electrical and electronic shops. In the past the David Florida Laboratory has tested satellites for

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, and the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

Inmarsat Inmarsat is a British communications satellite, satellite telecommunications company, offering global mobile services. It provides telephone and data services to users worldwide, via portable or mobile terminals which communicate with groun ...

has designated it as their authorized antenna test house. It has also tested Canadian satellites such as

RADARSAT-1 RADARSAT-1 was Canada's first commercial Earth observation satellite. It utilized synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to obtain images of the Earth's surface to manage natural resources and monitor global climate change. As of March 2013, the sate ...

and previously tested the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (Dextre) which now forms part of the Mobile Servicing System of the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. It completed work on the Orbiter Boom Sensor System which first flew on Shuttle Discovery during

STS-114 STS-114 was the first "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission following the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. ''Discovery'' launched at 10:39 EDT (14:39 UTC) on her 31st flight on July 26, 2005. The launch, 907 days (approx. 29 months) a ...

. The Laboratory worked on RADARSAT-2 prior to launch in 2007. Recently the David Florida Laboratory has completed the integration and environmental testing of the Maritime Monitoring and Messaging Microsatellite (M3MSat). This is a technology demonstration satellite that will be used to assess the utility of having in space an Automatic Identification System (AIS) for reading signals from vessels to better manage transport in Canadian waters. M3MSat was scheduled to be launched in 2015. The government announced in March 2024 that the laboratory will close by March 31, 2025.

Notes

External links

Canadian Space Agency website - David Florida Laboratory FAQ's

{{authority control Space program of Canada Science and technology in Canada Buildings and structures in Ottawa Research institutes in Canada Space technology research institutes 1972 establishments in Ontario